(Instrumental)

Once upon a time
There stood a house of ill fame
A drug property associated with violence and crime
There lived a family in despair
Sorrow and tragedy
Father was a drinker and a goddamn fiend
A sadistic motherfucker who could not keep his hands off his own kin
His soul was meant for the devil
It was rotten from within
After all these years of ... sin

Mother was a skeleton whore
Fucked up on heroin, wine and pills
Whatever she could score
More, more, more!
Her black circled eyes were simply empty
Her body was bruised and scarred
Oh, life was hard!
And if her sick alcoholic husband had a temper
He would beat up his wife
One time he took a knife and stabbed her twice
No! Not deep enough for she survived!
Once their marriage
An enchantment of love and trust
Hopes and dreams became nightmares of shame
Abuse and disgust

Assault, assault!
Domestic violence!
Family battery! Rape!
Violence, violence, violence, violence!
Assault, assault!
Abuse, abuse
Domestic violence!
Assault, assault!

Once upon a time
They were blessed with two children
A boy and a girl
Now by the age of twelve and nine
Traumatized and neglected
in a household of blood
Tears and wine!

One night, father became a completely insane
The children awoke by a horrible tumult
From downstairs
Sounds of screaming
Breaking glass and the throwing of chairs
But the children fell asleep again
And the girl had a disturbing dream
A stifling feeling of a hand covering her mouth
A smell of alcohol all around
She doesn't understand and cannot defend herself
When will this suffocating dream end?
Finally!
She is able to breathe
But when her bastard father shut the door behind him
She realized
This nightmare was no dream!
No dream!
No dream!

Three quite calm nights went by.
Merely the silence before a new tempest arrived.
All hell breaks loose on night four.
The children can now hear how father is whipping their squealing mother
with his leather belt while she falls to the floor.
The fear and tension is rising by the day.
The boy falls asleep but his sister is kept awake
by having serious thoughts for the two of them to escape.
Tick-tack! It's time to go!
For there's a crow...

Tick! Tack...
Ticking on her window.

She has no explanation why she has a terrible feeling
that someone is going to die.
Next morning they leave everything behind.
They bring some clothes, water and bread.
They run with fear
But without hesitation and regret,
Without looking back.

Darkness has fallen.
Two children are afraid and lost in the night.
They walk on an old road when a car appears
and they're too slow to hide.
Goddamn! He found them!
Goddamn! He found them!
Goddamn! He found them!
His eyes glow like those of Satan himself!
He's cursing, pounding, screaming!
Throws his son into the car.
Hits his little daughter so hard!
Tell me the truth. I know this was you.
But no more, little whore.
I'll punish you like I've never done before.
Goddamn! Goddamn! Goddamn!
His eyes glow like those of Satan himself!
They get beaten, locked up and mistreated.
There's no place like home!
There's no place like home!

And she opens her eyes after another brutal night.
Weeping wind whining hopeless tones
And there's no sunshine, it's still dark outside.
The living room is trashed.
There are bloodstains and pieces of glass everywhere.
Father still passed out on the couch.
Where's mother?
And why is there water dripping down the stairs?

She walks up the staircase and sees her little brother
Holding on to the doorpost of the bathroom,
As if he had just seen a ghost.
His body is frozen, eyes wide open.
He does not react to her voice.
What's wrong? A tear rolls down his pale face.
And then!
The sight of their dead mother,
Floating in light red water flowing from the bathtub.
She had left the water faucet open,
Taken an overdose of pills and slit both her wrists.
No! She is dead! She is dead! Mother is dead!

No!

Mama, why? Oh mother, goodbye...
Mommy, why? Oh mother, goodbye...

When crows tick on windows
Oh, when crows tick on windows...

They have to go.
Get out of the house!
Get out of the house!
Leave! Right now!
They need help!
But no soul seems to be around
Ghastly are the calls of some black crows shrieking outside
As if these creatures sense the fact that someone inside just died

Traumatized and shocked!
With trembling hands the girl grabs a piece of pie, a bottle of water,
A knife for protection and throws all that in a plastic bag.

Run!

The monster is still asleep
And his two children run fast while they weep

Driven by an intense anxiety
The second escape to safety
They will never forget such a devastating sight
The image of their mother's successful suicide

They definitely learnt the hard way from their mistake
There's another path through the woods they now will take

The children are tired and afraid
They went astray from the only path
They are now lost in the cold depths of these baleful woods
The dark is getting thicker and thicker and thicker
Oh... come little brother, we must seek shelter now
We will wait until the next day
At dawn we will find the way

Oh thank God, daylight!
It was a most frightening and dreary night
The sun smiles friendly down upon this place
It lights a path out of this maze
The forest is now behind them
And the city has been found
Though their attention gets drawn
To a small weather-worn playground

Hungry
Thirsty
Such an exhausting journey
Catching their breaths
On a scratched bench
Next to a rusty slide
Here hangs a filthy stench
They hear a squeaking sound
And someone suddenly begins to sing
Ha-haha-haha-haha-ha
A man dressed up as a clown, singing songs on the swing

His face seems friendly but also kind of sick
And... ta-da!
He makes their sorrows shortly disappear
By performing a magic trick

Oh, children,
There is a house built of gingerbread
Covered with cakes and a thousand sweets
It is mine.
Follow me.
You will see.
You can eat.
You'll be warm.
You'll be just fine.

He conjures up two candies
They look sweet but are somehow tasteless
They become drowsy
In the back of the car
And then they lose their consciousness

They lose their consciousness

Children, there is no house
Built of gingerbread ahead
My sweetest lies all lead
Towards a bitter place instead
But one thing I promise you is true
No one will ever find you

Neither white pebble-stones
Nor crumbs of bread were left as a trail
For them to be led along crooked old trees
Looking like twisted shapes of the dead.
Then they saw a beautiful snow-white bird sitting on a bough.
It flew away and they followed it
Until it alighted on the roof of a little house,
Constructed of gingerbread and confectionery.
So heavenly!
They began to eat.
Then a soft voice cried from the parlour:
"Nibble, nibble, grawn,
Is it a mouse nibbling at my little house?"
And the children answered:
"It's the wind, the heaven-born wind, "
And went on eating without disturbing themselves.

It was as if the house moved,
And in that moment,
The little white bird on the rooftop made a horrible shriek,
Instead a black crow flew away over the trees.
Gretel dropped the cake she held.
She fell down on her knees,
Began to cough up blood and threw up her delicious meal.
She couldn't breathe.
Chocking and chewing on the guts
Spewing from her mouth.
Gretel bled from eyes and her ears and her nose.
She was bleeding like a pig.
Until she dropped dead!
The skies turned red instantly
While the candy cottage
Transformed into a huge festering ulcer.
The stench of old blood and black pus...
Mmm...
Sugar and cake turned into decomposed flesh
crawling with flies, maggots and snakes.
This process of decay seemed quickly to spread.
It crawled over life and left it for dead.
Hansel took a few steps back.
He decided to turn around, to run away and then...
He looked straight into the face of a witch.
She whispered a spell, crafted in hell:
"Nibble, nibble, graw.
Hansel! I will eat your lifeless flesh...
Still warm... but raw"

Abducted by another freak of society.
Two little pigs are snatched by the wolf
In this stone-cold reality.
Temped by the serpent in disguise.
Poisoned by forbidden sweets in a promised paradise,
Built of lies.

They are taken.
Their hands tied to their backs.
Their mouths taped shut.
They awake in a concrete chamber.
Stones instead of gingerbread.
Two flies flew into a black sugar cobweb.
By the scum of our own kind
this treacherous web has been spun.
Numbered by fear they wait...
For an aggressive hungry spider to appear.

Too late to run away.
They have been misled.
No rooftop made of cake.
No walls built of bread.
Not even a glimpse of light is reaching inside.
Neither from the sun nor from the moon.
For these are no windows of clear sugar
Built in this dreary room.
Thoughts of milk, pancakes with treacle,
And warm beds draped with silk.
A delicious promise has been broken
And the intention behind is of a malicious kind.

This is no fairy-tale house
surrounded by caramel flowers
In a chocolate garden of confectionery trees.
This is the residence of a deranged psychopath
Who truly believes to be possessed
By a craft of witchery.

He kills children in the name of a witch.
A demonic voice compels him
To wander as a friendly clown.
Searching in every town,
Until flesh victims are found.
The voice of the witchspits venomous words in his head.
It can only be silenced
when infants are dead.
Her ghost slithers
Like black fog down the chimney at night.
Only he can see this tormenting parasite.

Dragging the children from the cellar
Into a room equipped for ritual sacrifice.
The walls are blotched with religious symbols
To glorify an infernal paradise.

He locks the girl up in an iron cage
To witness her young brother's death.
Now she will hear all his screams
Until he draws his last breath.
The serial killer shackles the boy to the floor,
Upon the sign of the witch.
The children scream:
"No more!"
"Shut the fuck up!
I will now take his precious little life."
Whispering unholy rhymes
While holding a black-hilted knife.
And he stabs like a maniac
Because the witch gave permission...
To mutilate the child beyond recognition.

He takes his time when he stabs the boy to death.
He keeps slashing and slicing
Even after his last breath.
Ill-fated gods are given praise.
Whilst stabbing the infant's torso, limbs and face.

Gaping wounds gushing blood and gore,
Covering the pentacle on the floor.
No way to die at that age.
Slaughtered before his sister's eyes
Staring from the cage.

Relieved, for the witch's voice
Now whispers and laughs.

The killer leaves the room
But comes back with an axe.
He chops up the corpses.
Tosses his body parts into plastic bags.
Drags them to the garden outside.
To be buried in an unmarked grave on this night.
The poor girl who has lost her mother
Is now forced to bury
What's left of her dismembered brother.
A macabre funeral in a sepulchral garden.
Buried next to the other
In the backyard of Death himself.

Exchanging the shovel for a bucket and a rag.
She has never seen suck a terrible bloodbath before.
Bone fragments and viscous clots of human gruel.
She's forced to clean the lugubrious mess off the floor.

Asking the murder what will happen with her life?
He answers:
"You will serve me as my slave
Until your inevitable sacrifice.

For the witch's wish and will is my command to kill"

It's dinnertime in the residence of this psychopath;
A fine meal of beans, bread, meat, and some wine.
Fortunately no empty stomach for the rest of the day.
Then the killer has something special to say.
"I saved your brother's most valuable part.
Before the burial I cut out his precious little heart.
Swallowing the souls of the victims...
Their hearts are what i eat.
Your brother's soul has now been devoured.
So tell me... did you like the meat?"

She blacks out
When that question is asked by this vile animal
Nearly suffocating on her vomit
In front of the gloating cannibal.
She awakes in the cage.
Something has changed.
Instead of fear her heart is filled with rage.
Her existence now balancing on the edge of a knife.
As long as the voice keeps whispering she will stay alive.
She is seriously considering suicide.
There is no doubt
To kill herself is the only way out.
"I will be butchered and buried like my brother.
I'd rather cut my wrist just like my mother."

Powered by a hatred she has never experienced before,
She consumes fear and despair
Until she cares for suicide no more.
And so the embittered girl starts thinking
Of ways to shove this witch into the oven.
"I will not die as his slave
I'd rather die fighting, scared but brave."

All the doors and windows in this satanic abattoir are barricaded.
But hey! There is one way!
A damn small chance to escape.
The front door can be unlocked with a key
Which is attached to the black baton
That the killer carries constantly...
To beat up his slave repeatedly.

One night, when dinner time arrives...
As always the killer puts the baton on the table.
Sitting comfortably, devouring his meal voraciously.
He speaks:
"Come here, have no fear.
Pour me some wine.
You'll be just fine."
That's when she thinks:
This moment is mine!
Nervously walking toward him,
holding the fork behind her back.
And whilst pouring the wine
She uses all her strength
To stab that fork deep into his neck.
She smashes, she smashes the bottle on his head.
Yet before she can grab the key,
He pulls everything off the table,
Right before he hits the floor.
A broken kerosene lantern
Leaking fuel causes a fire
That quickly spreads through the room.
She picks up the key from the floor,
Rushes the front door.
The killer drags himself forward,
Gargling on his own blood.
"Come back you fucking whore!"
She smiles and locks the door.
She's running through the woods.
Finally free,
But distracted by the screams of the burning witch.
She runs fast, straight into a tree!

She opens her eyes.
Her face is covered in blood.
She appears to be surrounded by twisted trees
In this abysmal dream.
Under a toxic blood red sky,
Ghostly clouds quickly passing by.
"Please! Can someone tell me,
This place where in I dwell,
Where does it reside between heaven and hell?
Am i dead?"
But her questions merely echo away into nothingness.

There are voices calling her name
From the blackest corners of his phantasmal void.
"Gretel, join us! Join us! Join us in death. "
Malevolent entities shaped and twisted in hideous ways.
No mind of human kind could have architected such a infernal place.

Under a toxic blood red sky,
Ghostly clouds quickly passing by.
"Please! Can someone set me free!
I'm being held in a nightmare.
I'm kept in purgatory!"

Finally she stumbles on this trail made of candy.
Like a hungry bird feeding crumbs of bread,
Consuming them one by one,
Hopefully this is the trail of delicacy
Lead towards a better place ahead.
But no, it lead her further and further into the darkness.
It reeks on burning flesh,
then the trail suddenly ends...

There's a dark presence lurking in the shadows.
It just entered purgatory
Because the body was cauterized within the fires of reality.
The spectral corpse of the clowns was heavily burned.
Her brother's murderer has returned...

A stifling furling when his charred hands take hold to her.
She cannot move.
She cannot defend herself.
When will this suffocating dream finally end?
The stench of burnt flesh becomes the smell of alcohol,
And when her bastard father shuts the door behind him,
she realizes: It was just a dream.
The real nightmare continues in reality.

There's no place like home.

There's no place like home.